The personal blog of Peter Lee a.k.a. "China Hand"... Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel, and an open book to those who read. You are welcome to contact China Matters at the address chinamatters --a-- prlee.org or follow me on twitter @chinahand.

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Lei Zhengfu Sex Tape Correction: The Wrong Girl!

The incomparable Roland Soong of EastSouthWestNorth turned
his critical eye on the webstorm surrounding the Lei Zhengfu sex tape and
posted a notice that the girl depicted in the various pictorial pastiches being
circulated (such as the “Lei Zhengfu as Jabba the Hutt” japery I posted on a
couple days back) is not the girl in the tape.She’s a student in Xiamen who has nothing to do with the shenanigans in
Chongqing and is understandably miffed at the underserved notoriety she has
achieved, apparently at the hands of some blogger in China who chose random
pictures of a pretty girl to bookend with Lei’s sluglike visage.

ESWN also translated and posted the translation of a web
posting by a journalist, “Mr. Gui Xi”, who had first look at the video butgot scooped by Ji Xiguang, allegedly a
hyper-aggressive and morally flexible freelancer who ran with the story, spiked
it in the endzone, and acquired 300,000 followers on his microblog account
while Mr. Gui Xi was left on the sidelines to contemplate the meager rewards of
ethical journalism.

A few points of interest here.

Mr. Gui Xi provides no further insight on how the “People’s
Supervisory Network”—apparently some kind of whistleblower site—got the tape
from somebody inside the Chongqing police apparatus.

But he does paint an interesting picture of how this
particular PRC journalist deals with dicy stories that involve government
officials.It involves a careful probing
for corroboration, cautious discussions with the editor, and anxious approaches
to the local authorities:

In the afternoon of November 20, I began
interviewing for confirmation. I called up Lei Zhengfu. He said
"No such thing" and denied it. I called up the Chongqing City
Communist Party Disciplinary Committee, and they said that they were not aware
of any sex videos. But they have an Internet monitoring department, and
if they come across such information, they would initiate an
investigation. They also asked me to provide them with the contact
information for the People's Supervisory Network.

That evening, I wrote the report . But my bosses felt that the case
cannot be so simple and that there must be some ulterior motive for leaking the
video, so the story was suppressed for a day until more information is obtained
the next day. In retrospect, there was a story behind and the decision
not to publish on the first day was correct.

…

As mentioned before, I had provided the
Chongqing City Communist Party Disciplinary Committee with the contact
information of the People's Supervisory Network on November 20. The next
day, November 21, I contacted them again. They said that their Internet
monitoring department had seen the Internet post on the evening of November 20,
and their leaders have immediately initiated the process to investigate.

I remembered that as soon as I identified
myself, the worker on the other side immediately said: "After you spoke to
me yesterday, I immediately informed the operations department. When they
saw the Internet post, they immediately informed the leaders. The leaders
took it seriously and immediately initiated the investigation."

…

Zhu Ruifeng [the source at People’s
Supervisory Network] thought that based upon his past experience, it would take
at most one week to bring Lei Zhengfu down by releasing the indecent video.

He said that he sought out a reporter to
share the material on November 20 out of timing considerations. The
Eighteenth Chinese Communist Party Congress was just over, so there are fewer
restraints on public opinion. On the morning of November 20, Sun Zhengcai
was just named as the Chongqing City Communist Party Secretary. "New
officials need accomplishments on the job!" Once the indecent video
gets shown, the principal will become a target.In retrospect, the Chongqing City Communist
Party Disciplinary Party acted even faster than expected, and Lei Zhengfu was
dismissed within three days.

Clearly, it's open season on Lei and the new municipal bosses are using his saucy antics to draw a bright line between the bad old days of Bo Xilai and the new, squeaky-clean regime in Chongqing.

Global Times interviewed Zhu Ruifeng, who reiterated that he
didn’t want to get involved in any pre-party congress boat-rocking.But his source, identified as an officer
inside the Chongqing public security apparatus, told him:

‘我就是因为马上要开十八大了，才要举报。因为可能纪委书记都要换了，新的领导班子要成立了，我得扳倒一个贪官。"

“The very reason I want to get this in the papers is because
of the 18th Party Congress.It’s possible that all the secretaries of the [Party] discipline
committees will be changed and new leadership groups set up.I have to take down a corrupt official.”

Zhu says his source’s motives are unknown.Maybe he wanted to ingratiate himself with
the new bosses (or become one himself).

According to Zhu, he got the e-mail with the video on
November 4 and called up Liu Zhengfu the next day:

“Lei had headed the propaganda bureau in Changshou County
and understood the interview process.He
told me, if you want an interview, first send me the materials.”

After receiving the materials, Lei denounced them as
forgeries and stonewalled Zhu.Zhu (and
apparently Ji Xuguang and “Mr. Gui Xi”) subsequently received a call from the
owner of a Karaoke TV bar in Beijing who identified himself as Lei’s cousin
and, we can presume, tried to manage the problem with some combination of
threats and inducements.

While reaching out to Zhu through intermediaries, Lei also
set up a special team to try to figure out who leaked the video, without
success (must have been an interesting kickoff meeting: “Hey, you know that
video of me having sex with that 18 year old girl?...).

The interesting and complicating element in the story that Wang
Lijun, the-disgraced-top-cop-under-disgraced-Chongqing-mayor Bo Xilai had
already received the video and investigated Lei a couple years ago; the
businessman and the girl were jailed and have already served their time and been released.According to the article, Lei had approached
the municipal leadership and apologized for his error.

One can assume, therefore, that Lei had already been on the
receiving end of whatever censure, discipline, or amused sniggering the party
deemed appropriate, the tape was evidence in a closed case whose release was
embarrassing and unnecessary, and in 2012 Lei was at liberty to pursue an
investigation of whoever had committed the punishable infraction of leaking the
infamous video.

However, events overcame him.

On November 20, a citywide cadre meeting was held to effect
the personnel changes mandated for Chongqing by the Party center and fine words
were spoken by the municipal party secretary concerning integrity in public
service.Zhu characterized this policy
statement as a “great gift” that took a load off his mind, and he began
approaching media outlets with the tape and the story.Within 63 or 71 hours, depending on how you
count it (and the Chinese blogosphere keeps close track of how long it takes to
collect an official scalp), the municipal government’s news office announced
that Lei was under investigation.

The rather ironic thing is that Lei was already investigated
during the Wang Lijun era and, subsequent to the investigation, had been
promoted to the rather important position of municipal district party
secretary.It isn’t clear that the
construction company that arranged the woman (and the special spycam in a
handbag) successfully bribed or blackmailed Lei.So far, at least, his crime consists of getting
caught on tape horndogging while looking ridiculous (Global Times provided the
interesting but seemingly gratuitous testimony that, of the 80 minutes of
video, only 36 seconds showed Lei having sex).